rules for sleep deprivation?, when sleeping on the job isn't an option Options

[GlassJaw]

The core book has rules for fatigue after running and the Sleep Regulator mentions some vague guidelines for rest.

But what if a runner needs to stay up for a long time (stake-out, guard duty) or is forced (sleep deprivation torture)? What kind of effects would sleep deprivation have and how would you adjudicate it?

Also, in general, how "strict" are the GM's out there for keeping track of whether the characters are getting enough rest?

[kzt]

[mfb]

i'd have lack of sleep deal stun damage based on the number of days gone without sleep. i don't track such things because i haven't run a game where staying awake is all that important. as long as they've got a few hours to rest, i'm willing to handwave things.

[Moon-Hawk]

Hmmm, I'm betting that if you threaten them with "penalties" they'll pop some long-haul and 90% of the time you won't have to actually figure out what you meant by "penalties."
For that other 10% of the time, I'd say start giving them ever-increasing stun damage, resisted with Willpower.
So what should the penalties be? Well, the world record for staying awake is AFAIK 264 hours. (about 11 days) But that doesn't help, we want typical results. Unmedicated people typically won't stay awake longer than 3-4 days at the most, and they'll certainly be performing well below their peak. My personal record is only 40 hours. Of course, I had no particularly compelling reason to stay awake longer than that.

[Walknuki]

On the fly ruling.

The player can automatically stay awake for (Bod+Will)/3 days. There after they must make a Bod+Will(1) roll every hour, incuring a -1 penalty to all rolls. After Bod+Will hours the penalty increases to -2, After another Bod+Will hours the penalty increases to -3, ect.

[Fortune]

[Dale]

After 6 months of 4 hours a day sleep I went insane.
There should be rules for that sort of thing. In game I mean.

[Konsaki]

I can stay awake, with normal activity, around 24 hours before my ability to function goes downhill, but it goes downhill fast.
I would say after a 24 hour period, your character would have to make a body+will check to see how many more hours he can funciton before taking a -2 pentalty. Each hit = 2 hours. I skip the -1 because lack of sleep is relative to being drunk.
They then must make another body+will (-2) check to see how far they can continue before suffering a -4 mod. This continues untill the character gets 0 hits and falls asleep the next time he stops, sitsdown or lays down unless they are already in one of those positions and they immediatly fall asleep.
If the player glitches, the character passes out right where they stand and if they crit glitch, the character hurt themselves when they fell. The physical damage is = to the ammount of 1s they rolled on the crit glitch.

The character can be woken up with a Str+Bod(4) check but each time the character is woken up they get an additional -2 penalty untill they are out of dice and cant be woken anymore.
The character who passes out needs a full 8 hours of uninterupted sleep +1 for every negative they have before they are at full power. 10 for a -2, 12 for a -4, and so on.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Fortune]

[Lagomorph]

Honestly, between Long Haul and Sleep Regulators, this seems like it would be really rare to come up often. I know our team has never had a problem, or if we did, we worked in shifts.

I dunno, for another alternate rule: For each day (24 hours) after 48 hours have passed, make a check of some kind (bod+will?), against a threshhold of 1, and have it increase by 1 every day until they fail and get sleep. Also each day past 48 hours adds -1 per day to all rolls so you can wear them down with sleep dep torture.

[Eryk the Red]

Much as I think that physical health should make you better able to go without sleep, I don't like using Body to help you stay up, because the idea of trolls being naturally better able to go without sleep seems a tad off. I can totally imagine a big fat troll being just as lazy and sleepy as a big fat human.

[Shrike30]

You could always base it off "unmodified" body... there were a couple of things I houseruled back in the SR3- days to be based on the stats of the character prior to figuring in racial mods. We don't really have "racial mods" this time around, but it'd be easy enough to fake 'em.

Some people don't do well at all getting out towards 24 hours... my girlfriend flat-out cannot stay awake that long. I can go 36 hours before I start losing out on the ability to focus on tasks for long periods, and if I sit down or lie down I have a hard time keeping myself awake. Beyond 48 hours I'm really not that functional, with the mid-50s being the longest I've ever stayed up in one shot.

My condition is vastly improved if I can get even 1-2 hours of sleep... assuming I was rested ahead of time, I can function for 4-5 days getting a couple of hours of sleep a night (although, by the end of that time, i'm pretty fried). Beyond that, I pretty much shut down, and it's likely I'll put in 15+ hours of sleep at one shot, even with alarms going off next to my bed.

I had an idea for running a campaign revolving around sleep deprivation... across a few days of the campaign (which would not have "downtime" to speak of) characters would only be able to recharge a point of Edge by getting an hour of sleep. Longhaul would let you function without penalties, sure... but your Edge runs out. It sounded like a nifty catch.